Why are people so crazy? Yeah, that is a bit vague so allow me to explain. People are so weird about movies. People have always been weird, especially when it comes to things like movies, but damn, our hyper-partisanship has messed up people’s brains regarding movies.
Whether it is people being outraged that a movie has gone woke, or that a movie is not diverse enough. People scream about perceived slights in trailers towards whatever side they fall on the political spectrum.
I cannot imagine getting so angry about a black mermaid, that I refuse to allow my kids to see it. Or being mad that Barbie is either too liberal (the map has the 9-dotted line for China!) or too conservative (Barbie is the paragon of a heteronormative female, or something like that). There are people who think Oppenheimer is not being sensitive towards the Japanese. Hey there was a talking dog in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and it was a female dog instead of a male like in the comic! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, I cannot imagine thinking this way.
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts the other day, and one of the hosts asked another if he saw the new Mission Impossible movie? The guy said that he refused to see it because he did not want to support Scientology. Jesus, how stupid is that? Maybe I should skip Oppenheimer because Christopher Nolan was raised Catholic….just kidding, I do not give a shit about his religious views. It is all made-up nonsense. Thetans, angels, demons…who cares, just make a good movie.
This brings me to the new craziness this week. Conservatives have been bragging about how great Sound of Freedom is doing at the box office. This movie is apparently some kind of QAnon porn. All about rescuing kids who have been trafficked, probably with lots of guns. Basically it is Taken, but with less Albanians and more evil libs. Whatever, if people want to go out and watch this movie, go for it.
What bothers me is the reports of the QAnon folks buying tickets in order to sell out theaters, to help pump up the numbers. There are a bunch of videos of fans seeing it sold out online, then stopping by the theater and finding it completely empty. Can you imagine being the theater manager, who sees a complete sellout on a Monday night? “Damn, I better call in some help, we are going to get crushed on concessions!” Then no one shows up. I do not think theaters make much money from the box office sales, but instead through concessions.
Who knows how widespread this is, but we have seen this with review aggregators. People will review-bomb movies they want to fail. White nationalists would review Black Panther negatively in order to cause people to not see it. Granted, it did not work, but people tried.
Maybe, just enjoy movies. You can hate a movie, you can love a movie. But why do you care what other people like?
